About time: Fannie Mae begins taxpayer payback
May 10, 2013, 10:34 AM | Updated: Mar 4, 2016, 5:52 am
Fannie Mae announced that it will pay $59.4 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury, helping to reduce the net cost of its taxpayer bailout to $21.1 billion, Reuters reported.
A strengthening housing market has helped the mortgage giant to record a record profit in the first quarter this year.
This also marks the fifth-consecutive quarter for profits for the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE). Critics have written that a significant payback program should have already been underway.
Since government regulators took over Fannie Mae in September 2008, it has received $116.1 billion in taxpayer funds.
Freddie Mac, which was also placed into FHFA conservatorship in 2008, has received about $71 billion in taxpayer aid since that time. By the end of June, it will have paid $36.6 billion of that back to the Treasury.